Jennifer Bristol recently lost one of her oldest friends—thanks to a Facebook fight about pit bulls.

The trouble started when she posted a newspaper article asserting that pit bulls were the most dangerous type of dog in New York City last year. "Please share thoughts… 833 incidents with pitties," wrote Ms. Bristol, a 40-year-old publicist and animal-welfare advocate in Manhattan.

Her friends, many of whom also work in the animal-welfare world, quickly weighed in. One noted that "pit bull" isn't a single official breed; another said "irresponsible ownership" is often involved when dogs turn violent. Black Labs may actually bite more, someone else offered.

Then a childhood pal of Ms. Bristol piped up with this: "Take it from an ER doctor… In 15 years of doing this I have yet to see a golden retriever bite that had to go to the operating room or killed its target."

That unleashed a torrent. One person demanded to see the doctor's "scientific research." Another accused him of not bothering to confirm whether his patients were actually bitten by pit bulls. Someone else suggested he should "venture out of the ER" to see what was really going on.

"It was ridiculous," says Ms. Bristol, who stayed out of the fight. Her old buddy, the ER doctor, unfriended her the next morning. That was eight months ago. She hasn't heard from him since.

People are rude because they are incapable of articulating their differing opinions in a well thought out manner or they are insecure in their opinions. They are rude online because they are so used to everyone else being rude and they want to build a following of support to help reduce their insecurities and doubts.

My grandfather was a people person, but he was also a debater. He would debate with just about anyone on any topic and he would go on and on about it. My father was even more opinionated than my grandfather, but I noticed my father rarely got into debates with anyone including family. Whenever he disagreed with someone, he usually stated his point, responded to the first response he received, then he let it go.

When I was young, I was more like my grandfather in that I would debate endlessly. I asked my father why he tended to let everything go or even worse, let other people have the last word in debates. Beyond his normal "You can't fix stupid" saying, he said that debating to win is a lost cause. You should debate to inform, not to win.

I firmly believe in that philosophy now which is why when I get into a debate with someone online, I typically do not respond more than 2 times to the same person. There are some exceptions, but they are rare.

I do the same in the offline world as well. I don't have the "I must prove I'm right" mindset. If I believe I am right, that is all that I need. I do not need confirmation of it from anyone else nor do I have even a remote desire to convince others they are wrong. I believe you believe what you believe and the only person who can convince you to change what you believe is yourself.

I will debate a topic more than a couple of times over multiple days usually because the points of the topic have shifted in that time. I will also debate the same topic with multiple people over time as well.

As for "go viral" .. I accept that most people have absolutely no idea how the internet works. They assume they do because they use Facebook and other similar services, but they really have no understanding of how it works.

Even in the offline world, people draw conclusions based on the end result. For example, the favorite songs of most teens is the one that local radio stations play the most. They assume the radio stations play the songs so much because of demand, but in reality, the songs are played to create the following, which in turn drives it even more creating more demand .. perpetual marketing for the win!

That is why I am not a fan of mass advertising. If the Kony video was really viral, then so would be AOL from the late 90s and early 2000s. Never mind the fact that you could find an AOL CD in every magazine or our mailboxes every other day.

When something gets popular through mass marketing and media saturation, people sharing it after that does mean the content is truly viral. It just means that skilled advertising agents and/or bored media editors took advantage of their market reach.

It's just like news sites who have a "What's Viral Today" column .. if it was viral, they wouldn't have to tell you about it.

This is a good topic. I have thought about the subject quite a bit. I try to carry myself in a respectfull and considerate manner in day to day life. I go out of the way to keep from being rude to others. I am new to the message board thing I guess. This was the first one that I ever joined. I tried to be respectfull on this board and still do to certain posters. It didn't take ten post on this board for another poster to attack me. Over a period of time I realized that you have to watch every word you type or risk the wrath of one poster or the other. It is like some posters sit around waiting for the chance to insult others.
After a while I started defending myself and positions and really didn't care who liked it. I have had a couple of problems with posters that was quickly solved with PMs. It is funny how certain posters change their attitude in a private conversation without the whole board watching. I have never put a poster on ignore, never needed to. I just look at the user ID and consider the source.
Being right drives a good bit of this behaviour. I am not going to let it bother me. I am sure not going to spend half a day looking up stats to prove a point that want change a poster's opinion anyway. I am not going to waste the time. Proving that I am right to some guy on a message board doesn't mean that much to me.
Some of the rude behaviour on this board comes from the homer/realist labels and each side has already decided to be rude when they read who the poster is.
I don't know why the rude behaviour started on the internet. It was here before me and it is easy to let yourself be rude because everybody else is doing it. That is no excuse for being rude, but posters get drawn in to it.
I blame much of the rudeness on kids or immature adults. Same thing I guess. Many of them don't have much of a life and these boards give them a chance to be a big tough guy, because they can't be that person if you met them face to face.

I think it has to do with the way the internet is set up. Since you are not dealing with the person face-to-face, your opinions can be much stronger without any real reprecussion or the thought of any reprecussion.

What I often see is when somebody screws up, even if it's harmless or an honest mistake or whatever, people love to get on the internet and say to the effect 'I've lost all respect for you.'

If the person that they had lost all respect for was there face to face, we probably would not feel so free to mention that we've lost all respect for that person for different reasons like having to interact with that person who gets angry after your comment or whatever.

I think what happens is that it is so easy to make such harsh and wide sweeping statements on the internet that after doing it for so long on the internet, we actually start to think that way in all forms of life and it's not good for the social aspect for our culture.

I think it has to do with the way the internet is set up. Since you are not dealing with the person face-to-face, your opinions can be much stronger without any real reprecussion or the thought of any reprecussion.

What I often see is when somebody screws up, even if it's harmless or an honest mistake or whatever, people love to get on the internet and say to the effect 'I've lost all respect for you.'

If the person that they had lost all respect for was there face to face, we probably would not feel so free to mention that we've lost all respect for that person for different reasons like having to interact with that person who gets angry after your comment or whatever.

I think what happens is that it is so easy to make such harsh and wide sweeping statements on the internet that after doing it for so long on the internet, we actually start to think that way in all forms of life and it's not good for the social aspect for our culture.

YR

Similar is the "my prayers for X, my condolences to X" etc, the person will never see them so why post them?